Silver Eyes (19 page)

Mike studied me anxiously. “Angel?”

I closed my eyes and nodded, meaning yes, I would live and yes, the chip was silent.

Mike folded my fingers around a glass of water, and I drank it gratefully. I swallowed the pain pill he gave me.

“Now that she's okay, let me go,” Rianne demanded.

“We'll miss you, too,” Mike said sarcastically. “Remember our deal. You go free, but so does Timothy.”

She nodded agreement, and he got out the handcuff keys.

I put down the glass. “Wait,” I said weakly.

Mike stopped. Rianne went rigid, no doubt ready to give herself another heart attack.

I held up a hand. “No, go ahead and free her. I just want to talk to her.”

“About what?” Rianne shakily sat up. “Stop hovering,” she told Timothy. “You saw me take my medicine.”

“About Eddy Castellan. Our common enemy.” I turned to look at Timothy, and the movement
made my head throb. “I'm sorry to tell you this, but your uncle is not a very nice man.”

Timothy shook his head and looked stubborn. “You're wrong. It couldn't have been Uncle Eddy who installed your Loyalty chip. Maybe it was Anaximander,” he offered.

“It was Eddy.” I searched for the words that would convince him. I had no proof, but I knew.

Mike helped me out. “Do you know why Eddy went to jail when he was your age? It wasn't for a misdemeanor. The charge was manslaughter, but it was closer to murder. I looked it up on the news database; you can, too.” Mike gave Timothy the details.

“We don't know his side of the story,” Timothy insisted when Mike finished. “There could be more to it than that.”

“Will you listen to my side of the story?” I asked him.

“Okay.” Timothy cracked his knuckles.

I described my meetings with Eddy and the way he had constantly belittled Anaximander. I spoke of my certainty that Anaximander also had a Loyalty chip because he sometimes swayed the way I did when coping with the drowning memory. I told Timothy how Eddy had spoken of Timothy as being unbalanced and possibly violent. I reminded Timothy that the terrorists had not taken Eddy who, as Head of Operations, was a better hostage than Timothy.

When I finished Timothy looked miserable and indecisive. “I don't know.”

“There's more,” I said. “But it's not my story to tell. Rianne, I need you to tell us about your parents.”

“My parents?” Rianne looked surprised. “What do they have to do with anything?”

Mike raised a questioning eyebrow, too. He sat down on one of the sofas and held me against his chest. I was all too glad of the support. I felt as if I'd been through a war.

“Maybe nothing,” I said. “But I have a hunch they're important. Tell me about them.”

Still looking baffled, she started. “The last name I've been using is an alias. My parents' names were Alex and Francine Pelletier. Is that the sort of thing you wanted to know?”

“Yes,” I said. “You told me once that your mother had a similar heart condition to yours and died of a bad shock. Today you said that SilverDollar tortured her. Which is true?”

Rianne's dark eyes fastened on Timothy. “Both. SilverDollar killed her. My father, too.”

“How?”

“It was my fault,” Rianne said, surprising me. “They died because of me. Because I was born like this.” She gestured to her spindly legs and touched her heart. “The doctors said that without an Augmented heart my life expectancy was sixteen. When I turned fifteen and SilverDollar still hadn't delivered the Augments it had promised time after time, Dad joined the Radicals.”

“But SilverDollar spends millions every year on Augments,” Timothy objected.

“Liar!” Rianne's eyes flashed. “That's what SilverDollar always says, but it's a bald-faced lie! They spend the bare minimum. My father received a Memory Recorder because it was essential to his job, but they never gave him the silver eyes he
needed. They patched and repatched my heart, always waiting until it was an emergency, and then spending the least amount of money possible instead of buying me an Augmented heart and being done with it.”

“Stop!” I yelled, then winced when my head threatened to fall off. “Timothy, you'll get your turn later. Rianne, please continue. Your father joined the Radicals . . . ?”

“Yes.” Rianne glowered once more at Timothy and then went on. “The Radicals were tired of hollow promises. They wanted action. So they decided to kidnap the son of SilverDollar's president to force her to give us what we'd been promised. They were successful, but my father was caught and killed during the operation.”

“How did your dad die?” I held my breath.

“He drowned. He was leading the pursuit away from the others, and his boat tipped. He'd lived his whole life in Space; he'd never learned to swim, and he drowned.”

I took a deep breath. “Where did he drown?”

Rianne was staring. “In a bayou in Louisiana.”

I summoned up the drowning memory.
Dropping down, down through murky green water. My boots dragging me down while my arms flailed.

A bayou, not a chlorine-clear swimming pool. Weight in my legs instead of a bullet hole in the shoulder. I hadn't been remembering the showdown with Dr. Frankenstein. The drowning memory had been implanted along with the Loyalty chip. All this time I had been remembering something that happened to Rianne's father, not to me.

“And your mother?” I asked.

“The ransom negotiations weren't going well. Mom thought that if SilverDollar's president could just see for herself how much the Augments were needed, she would be persuaded. So Mom went down to Earth to negotiate. Two days later she died of a heart attack.

“They said the strain of the extra gravity had stressed her heart too much, but I've been on Earth longer, and my heart's weaker than hers was. They lied. They must have frightened her or hurt her to cause the heart attack. But even if they didn't cause the attack, my mother shouldn't have died. Earth has medical resources we can't hope to touch in space. SilverDollar could have saved her life if they'd wanted to.”

Timothy looked sick.

I had a flash of memory.
President Castellan accusing Eddy of incompetence for not having a doctor on hand.
I felt ill, too, but I had to ask. “If your mother had the same heart condition as you, does that mean she also had a trapdoor in her chest?”

“Yes.” Rianne studied me narrowly.

“Was there a word inscribed on it? Your father's name, perhaps? Alex?”

“Yes.” Rianne looked spooked. “How did you know?”

“I know, because I've seen it. Eddy wears it around his neck when he wants to taunt your father—Anaximander.”

S
ILENCE.

“What did you say?” Rianne asked, a dangerous glint in her eye.

“Anaximander is your father.” Alexander, Anaximander. Eddy would have found the closeness between the two names amusing.

“My father is dead.” Rianne brushed that matter aside. “What did you say Eddy wears around his neck?”

I turned to Timothy; Rianne wasn't the only one I needed to convince. “Have you seen it? When Eddy's with Anaximander, he pulls it out and strokes it.”

Timothy's gray eyes widened. “Oh, God. I have seen it. A piece of black plastic on a cord—just like the one over your heart, Rianne. I asked him what it was once. He said it was his good luck charm.”

“I think I'm going to be sick,” Rianne said.

Fortunately, she wasn't, but several moments passed before she spoke again. “Anaximander
can't be my father. I've seen him. I would have recognized him.”

“Are you sure? What if he's been Augmented since you last saw him? Shaved his head, been given the silver eyes he needed, maybe had the shape of his face altered. . . . Couldn't Anaximander be your father?”

She was still shaking her head. I changed tack. “Did you actually see your father's body?”

“It was cremated before being shipped to space,” Rianne said reluctantly. “But that doesn't mean anything. I'm telling you: my father is dead.”

“No.” I shook my head, compassion in my gaze. “I'm afraid he's not. Eddy did something much worse to him than kill him. He turned him into his own worst enemy.” Another practical joke for Eddy to laugh at.

“He is not Anaximander! My dad would never have—”

“Would never have stood by and watched your mother die?” I finished when she broke off. “Would never have left you alone? Not half an hour ago my Loyalty chip almost made me kill Mike.”

Mike spoke up. “I told you how SilverDollar erased Angel's memories. If she hadn't managed to leave herself some clues, she never would have remembered me, never would have been anything but a loyal employee.”

“Whenever I started to remember, a feedback loop would kick in, throwing me into a memory of drowning. None of my own memories were negative enough, so they implanted someone else's memory—your father's memory from his Memory Recorder Augment.”

Rianne was shaking her head. No.

“Eddy,” I added bitterly, “would have thought it amusing to make your father watch your mother die.” As he had insisted that I help Anaximander capture Mike. I remembered suddenly that Anaximander had tried to talk Eddy out of it.

Rianne was crying. I touched her shoulder, but she shrugged me off, and I didn't try again. She had been alone too long. Timothy stood by, looking helpless. Her tears lasted under a minute. When she looked up again, hatred was carved into her face. “How do we get him?”

“We
can't,” I said. “We need to call in help, either the UN or President Castellan. I might have an in with someone who works for the UN.” I explained about Dr. Hatcher's apology and offer of help. “I think he meant it. He gave me his aircar.”

“Probably so he could tail you to the beanstalk,” Mike said cynically. “No. I'm not winning free of SilverDollar just to let the UN put a leash on us. So he apologized. So what? Where was he for the years we spent stuck in the past?”

I thought Mike was being paranoid, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure of Dr. Hatcher. Mike and I had thought we knew what we were doing when we allowed one of us to be captured by SilverDollar. We had been very wrong then, so I stayed silent.

“It doesn't matter,” Timothy said. “If we go to the UN, they'll arrest Rianne for kidnapping.”

I winced. I hadn't thought about that. “President Castellan it is, then.”

Neither Mike nor Rianne was happy with that
decision, but they couldn't come up with a better idea.

“Timothy, I need you to call Graciana,” I said. “Eddy's screening your mother's calls. If we try to phone her directly, the message will never get through.”

Timothy agreed and went into the conference room to make the call. I watched over his shoulder.

Graciana was overjoyed to see Timothy, spat when Timothy told her his uncle Eddy had arranged his kidnapping, and eagerly agreed to contact Timothy's mother for him.

We all sighed in relief, but less than a minute later, Graciana called back, forehead creased with worry. “Anaximander will not put me through to Madam. He says she is unavailable; she has gone to the Spacer ship to negotiate your ransom.”

“But I'm not on the Spacer ship! I'm free.” Timothy looked horror-stricken. “It doesn't make any sense,” he said after he'd disconnected. “The Spacers must be bluffing, pretending they have me when they don't.”

It made sense to me. “Rianne, you have to contact your people. Tell them it's a trap. As soon as President Castellan boards their ship, Eddy will claim that they've killed her and attack the Spacers.”

“But why?” Timothy asked.

Mike had figured it out. “Eddy wants the presidency.”

Rianne didn't listen to any more. “I have to call my ship and warn them. You guys leave the room. I'm going to have a hard enough time convincing them as it is.”

We left.

Five minutes later when Rianne wheeled herself out of the conference room, anxiety had tightened her skin. “They think I've been coerced. President Castellan is almost there. They won't listen to me. Unless . . .” Miserably, she looked at Timothy. “Unless they have some insurance.”

Timothy took an involuntary step back. “No.”

Rianne turned to Mike and me. “You have to help me. If I don't deliver Timothy to them, they'll fall into Eddy's trap.”

Mike held up his hands. “Don't look at us. It has to be Timothy's decision.”

“He won't do it.” Guiltily, Rianne avoided looking at Timothy. “We'll have to take him captive. Give me the gun.”

“How do you know he won't do it?” I asked. “You haven't asked him.”

“Of course he won't do it,” Rianne snapped.

“Ask him.”

A long, painful moment passed. Rianne finally looked at Timothy. I was afraid she would ask him the wrong way, sarcastically, but she surprised me. “Please, Timothy. I know it's a lot to ask—”

It was more than a lot. Considering Timothy's past experience at the hands of Spacers, it was asking for the moon.

Timothy cut her off before she could beg. “I'll do it. On one condition.”

“Anything.”
Rianne's voice was intense.

“That as soon as you've delivered me, your part in this is over. You go to the beanstalk hospital on a stretcher and you do whatever the doctor tells you to do.”

“The doctor's not going to be able to do anything more than the medication I already took, but okay, I promise.”

“I wasn't finished,” Timothy said. “You also have to let me pay for your treatment.”

“That's two conditions,” Rianne said.

Timothy folded his arms, looking stern.

“All right, you win. It's a deal.” She struggled with herself for a moment, then managed to grind out, “Thank you.”

We were too late.

We'd set the elevator to maximum speed, but it had still taken another eight minutes to reach the space station at the top of the beanstalk. Another five minutes were spent discovering where the Spacer ship was docked. We lost another minute to an argument between Timothy and Rianne. Timothy had refused to let her exert herself even the tiny amount required to glide through zero-G and insisted that she ride piggyback.

Altogether, eighteen minutes had passed by the time we swung off the zero-G version of a motorized walkway—a lot of leather straps attached to a moving track in the “ceiling”— and reached the small, run-down spaceship that Rianne named as our destination. Too late.

The Spacer man who opened the airlock said, “Hurry up. President Castellan is demanding to see her son. Jerome can't stall her much longer.”

“I told him not to let her on board!” Rianne said furiously from her position on Timothy's back.

The Spacer looked surprised. “Why would he do that? A face-to-face meeting with SilverDollar's
president is what we've wanted all along. Someone with the authority to negotiate, not a flunky.”

Eddy would have hated being called a flunky.

“Never mind, just hurry up and take us there,” Rianne said.

Offended, the Spacer shoved off and glided inside the ship. He moved efficiently, guiding himself with the occasional touch.

The rest of us followed less gracefully as he took us down a curved corridor. At least I told myself it was a corridor. At odd moments my perspective would change, and I would feel as if we were falling down a well—albeit very slowly—or swimming up a tunnel. I preferred to think of it as a corridor.

Our guide turned left at the third intersection and opened the first hatch. He stayed outside while the four of us swam through. Rianne detached herself from Timothy's back. The people inside were oriented as if the hatchway was on the floor, not a wall, and my perspective shifted dizzyingly again.

“Timothy!” An avalanche of relief obliterated President Castellan's poker face. She let go of her handhold and launched herself at Timothy.

Her force sent them both bumping up against a wall, but she didn't seem to care, hugging him. “Are you all right?”

Timothy grabbed a handhold and steadied them both. “Yes, but—”

“He is fine, just as you were told,” a smooth-voiced man, whom I took to be Jerome, interrupted. He had Asian features, but his skin was reddish, as if badly sunburned. Radiation? I wondered.
One of his legs was hooked around the zero-G version of a chair, but the other leg ended at the knee.

“It is my wish that both of you will leave here in good health.”

President Castellan's face hardened again at the blatant threat. “Yes, your good intentions are crystal clear to everyone,” she said bitingly while clinging to the wall.

Jerome grew angry. “It's your company that's forced us to this.”

“Mom.” Timothy pulled at her arm. “We have to get out of here. Uncle Eddy's going to—”